Digital Health & Technology
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January 10, 2025
Tech Co., Feds Seek Wins In Commercial Item Preference Row
A tech company is asking a federal judge to block the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from proceeding with solicitations that stand to replace so-called batCAVE and Signal software it developed that is already providing the desired functionality.
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January 10, 2025
9th Circ. Affirms Hearing Aid Co.'s Win Over Investor Suit
The Ninth Circuit on Friday handed a win to Eargo Inc. and affirmed the dismissal of a securities class action against the hearing aid company, which alleged that the company and its top brass acted with intent to commit insurance billing fraud.
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January 10, 2025
Social Media Apps Fail To Trim Calif. Mental Health Mass Tort
Meta Platforms, YouTube, Snap and TikTok have lost a bid to cut failure-to-warn claims from consolidated litigation over their social media platforms' alleged harm to youth mental health, with a California state judge ruling that neither the Communications Decency Act nor the First Amendment bar liability based on an app's own features.
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January 10, 2025
1st Circ. Questions Reach Of Anti-Torture Law In Civil Cases
The First Circuit on Friday hinted it may be considering limits on the jurisdiction of the Torture Victims Protection Act, during a hearing where former Justice Stephen Breyer recalled concerns he first raised on the Supreme Court that an overly broad reading could pave the way for other nations to arrest Americans for incidents on U.S. soil.
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January 09, 2025
'Stunned': Judge Rips Atty For Violating Antitrust Trial Order
A California federal judge overseeing an antitrust jury trial over claims that Intuitive Surgical was a monopolist that abused its power by blocking hospitals from using a service to extend the life of a component related to its surgical-robot arms said Thursday she was "stunned" when plaintiff Surgical Instrument Service showed a video that violated a pretrial order.
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January 09, 2025
Cancer Org Fails To Get Rival's TM Counterclaims Tossed
A Georgia federal judge said Thursday that the Glioblastoma Foundation Inc. can't yet escape a series of counterclaims filed against it by a rival nonprofit amid a trademark spat, ruling that its defenses in a dismissal bid largely relied on factual issues about whether the rival fraudulently obtained the marks at issue.
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January 09, 2025
VITAS Must Face Wiretap Suit Over Customer Service Calls
A California federal judge declined to toss a putative class action alleging VITAS Healthcare violated wiretapping laws by helping a third-party software developer eavesdrop on calls with VITAS' customers, noting Wednesday the third party was capable of using the data derived from the calls for its own purposes.
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January 08, 2025
Intuitive Killed Biz For Reusing Robo-Surgery Arms, Jury Told
The president of a family-owned medical instrument repair business suing biotechnology company Intuitive Surgical on antitrust claims told a California federal jury Wednesday that his company saw a "huge opportunity" in providing a service that extended the life of Intuitive's surgical robot arms, but hospitals balked after Intuitive sent threatening letters.
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January 08, 2025
Patent Board Knocks Out Most Of Apple Patent
Two rulings out of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board have wiped out several claims in a patent Apple is asserting against a medical software company that was initially first to assert patents against Apple over health-related programming in the Apple Watch.
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January 08, 2025
Telligen's TM Suit Against IT Co. Can Move Forward
A California federal judge is letting a trademark lawsuit from health data company Telligen proceed against information technology company Telligens, ruling that he was not yet convinced that the suit was filed 10 years too late.
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January 08, 2025
Biotech Co.'s Facility Failures Lost Investors Money, Suit Says
The executives and directors of biotechnology company Humacyte Inc. have been hit with a shareholder derivative suit in North Carolina federal court alleging the company concealed that its manufacturing facility failed to comply with certain quality assurance practices, leading to delayed regulatory review for its product candidate.
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January 07, 2025
Robo Surgery Co. Gets Billions From Selling Parts, Jury Told
Surgical Instrument Service accused Intuitive Surgical at the start of a federal trial Tuesday of being a monopolist making billions of dollars by blocking hospitals from extending the life of reusable surgical-robot components, while Intuitive blasted the medical instrument repair company for "trying to misuse antitrust laws to enrich itself."
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January 07, 2025
HHS Fines Mass. Health Firm $80K Over Ransomware Attack
Elgon Information Systems, which provides digital medical record and billing support services, will pay $80,000 over alleged healthcare data protection rule violations following a ransomware attack on its systems in March 2023 that impacted roughly 31,248 customers, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday.
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January 07, 2025
HIPAA Cyber Rule Shake-Up Arrives On Eve Of Trump's Return
A massive cybersecurity rule change proposed this week would require healthcare providers and insurers to protect patient data with multifactor authentication and other safeguards. Attorneys are watching to see if the Trump administration changes course.
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January 06, 2025
Labcorp Loses Appeal Of Gene-Testing Patent In $372M Case
Labcorp, one of the world's largest chains of clinical lab providers, lost its appeal over a patent tied to a $372 million judgment it is facing in the Western District of Texas, after Federal Circuit judges on Monday upheld an administrative patent board ruling against it two years ago.
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December 20, 2024
Medical Records Co. Wants Rival's Antitrust Suit Tossed
Epic Systems Corp. told a New York federal court that an antitrust case lodged by Particle Health Inc. is really just payback for revealing concerns that Particle allowed its customers to inappropriately access personal medical records.
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December 20, 2024
Top Privacy & Cybersecurity Developments Of 2024
The state data privacy law patchwork continued to add new and varied pieces in 2024, while major hacks shook up the healthcare industry and other critical sectors, and the first U.S. laws setting guardrails for the use of artificial intelligence technologies emerged.
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December 19, 2024
Google Health Tracking Plaintiffs Fight To Keep Suit Alive
A California federal judge who was asked by Google to toss a proposed class action alleging that the tech giant illicitly scoops up users' personal data from healthcare providers' websites indicated during a Thursday hearing that he might grant the request while adding that he still has "a lot more thinking to do."
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December 17, 2024
UNC Doctor Can't Shield Minor Transgender Patients' Records
A University of North Carolina doctor cannot assert privilege over medical records sought from the university by state Republicans fighting a suit by the physician and others seeking to enjoin a law imposing limits on transgender care for minors, a federal magistrate judge has ruled.
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December 17, 2024
Stanford Profs Say Roche's Trade Secret Claims Time-Barred
Stanford University's trustees and three of its professors have asked a California federal court to dismiss trade secret theft claims bought by subsidiaries of F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, arguing that the allegations are time-barred because the companies were on notice of the purported misappropriation for over three years before filing suit.
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December 17, 2024
New Fed Health Data Rules: What You Need To Know
The Biden administration this week established long-awaited regulations codifying how medical providers and vendors must share electronic health information. New provisions were included to thwart criminal investigations into reproductive healthcare.
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December 17, 2024
FDA Sharpens Focus On Celebrity Drug Endorsements
Ads featuring celebrities such as tennis star Serena Williams and interior designer Nate Berkus surfaced in FDA enforcement letters this year. The agency has ramped up its scrutiny of influencer drug promotion.
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December 11, 2024
Ga. Judge Refuses To Reconsider Toss Of Patient Data Suit
A Georgia federal judge has refused to reconsider the dismissal of a proposed class action alleging Piedmont Healthcare Inc. unlawfully shared patients' health data with Facebook via the company's tracking pixel tool.
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December 10, 2024
UpHealth Says Glocal Execs Stalling On $115M Award Suit
Digital health services company UpHealth has asked an Illinois federal judge to favor its efforts to pin down assets belonging to executives of Indian healthcare firm Glocal as it looks to enforce a $115 million arbitral award, saying the respondents are engaging in "obstructionist" conduct.
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December 06, 2024
Google Must Face Trimmed BIPA Suit Over IBM Dataset
A California federal judge on Thursday permitted Illinois residents to proceed with a pared-down version of their proposed class action accusing Google of violating biometric privacy laws with facial data collected by IBM, ruling they've adequately alleged a violation of the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act.
Expert Analysis
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What DOJ's 2022 Recovery Stats Say About FCA Enforcement
Despite showing a decline in False Claims Act recoveries in fiscal year 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice's recently released statistics should lead companies to expect a continued rise in government-initiated investigations, pandemic-related fraud enforcement and FCA cases involving new technology, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
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Medicare Developments Ahead For Remote Health Monitoring
Stakeholders interested in remote monitoring services should keep an eye on an upcoming multijurisdictional contractor advisory committee meeting that may lead to a new local coverage determination affecting Medicare coverage for remote monitoring devices, say attorneys at McDermott.
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Calif. Privacy Law Holds Implications For Mental Health Apps
California is leading the way in privacy regulation with its amended Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, which has important compliance repercussions for mental health app developers and could serve as a model for similar laws in other states, say Christine Moundas and Elana Bengualid at Ropes & Gray.
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New Clinical Trial Law Promotes Diversity And Modernization
The Food and Drug Omnibus Reform Act, signed into law last month, will likely encourage more equitable subject recruitment and enrollment in clinical trials, and also could create a pathway toward clarifying ambiguities that have historically been left for regulated entities to piece together, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.
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Evaluating The Legal Ethics Of A ChatGPT-Authored Motion
Aimee Furness and Sam Mallick at Haynes Boone asked ChatGPT to draft a motion to dismiss, and then scrutinized the resulting work product in light of attorneys' ethical and professional responsibility obligations.
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2022 Law And Policy Highlights In Digital Health Care
This year, federal regulators made good on several commitments to create new opportunities for digital health innovators, and a number of promising cybersecurity bills are on the horizon, but not all virtual health care law and policy developments have been positive, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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Next Compliance Steps For Health Cos. Using Tracking Tech
In light of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights' expansive view of what constitutes protected health information, regulated entities seeking to provide websites and mobile apps for patients may need to choose between several imperfect compliance pathways if they wish to continue using tracking technologies, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.
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Top Trends And Challenges For Health Care Financing In 2022
Rising inflation, interest hikes, supply chain issues and public market disruption are just some of the factors that made 2022 a challenging year for financing health care deals, and all indications point to continued headwinds next year, say Stephanie McCann and Samantha Koplik at McDermott.
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2022 Data Privacy Suits Tested New Liability Theories
In the absence of a comprehensive federal data privacy law, plaintiffs lawyers are testing new theories of liability under state laws, and a look at recent lawsuits against online companies that have resulted in large settlements shows these attempts are more frequently being met with success, say attorneys at Quinn Emanuel.
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How EU's New Pharma Incentives May Affect US Cos.
Geneviève Michaux and Georgios Symeonidis at King & Spalding examine Europe's recent revisions to its General Pharmaceutical Legislation and the Orphan and Paediatric Legislation, and consider the European Commission's related policy proposals, with an emphasis on pharmaceutical incentives and impacts for U.S. pharmaceutical developers and manufacturers that market products in Europe.
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HHS Bulletin Raises HIPAA Risks For Online Tracking Vendors
A new bulletin from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services clarifies how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act applies to information collected by tracking technology on websites and mobile apps, creating new compliance considerations for online tracking vendors that may be unfamiliar with HIPAA, says Mason Fitch at Hintze Law.
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Compliance Considerations For Virtual Ketamine Clinics
In the wake of investigations into several online prescribers of controlled substances, it is more important than ever that virtual clinics providing off-label ketamine treatment for mental and behavioral health issues consider five key aspects to staying compliant with medical practice and controlled substance regulations, say attorneys at Goodwin.
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State Regulation Compliance Tips For Telehealth Employers
Nondisclosure, onboarding and reimbursement challenges are behind many remote work-related telehealth employment lawsuits, but with advance planning and knowledge of the state's requirements where practitioners are located, telehealth employers can avoid costly mistakes from the inception through the end of employment, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.